Anti-Social Music is a non-profit composer/performer collective created for the purpose of presenting new chamber music while not being so gosh-darn serious about it. This stuff is supposed to be fun, no? Founded in 2000 by Franz Nicolay, Jean Cook, Pat Muchmore, Peter Hess, William Brittelle, Dan Lasaga, Ken Thomson, and Paul Chuffo; ASM presents concerts of all-new work twice yearly, plus regular repertory shows festivals, clubs, on rooftops, and venues both conventional and urine-stained; and have been named by Alex Ross in The New Yorker and John Schaefer of WNYC’s New Sounds as one of the groups driving the new generation of boundary-blurring composers.

Since then? Just past our tenth anniversary, we’ve played everywhere from the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe to Merkin Hall. We’ve released four studio albums. We produced the hit indie opera The Nitrate Hymnal and supported inde-classical multi-media works like Kamala Sankaram‘s Miranda and William Brittelle‘s Mohair Timewarp. We’ve collaborated with groups including dälek and His Name Is Alive as part of our “Anti-Social Music Sleeps Around” comissioning/collaboration program. We toured Ukraine in fall 2010, and brought two of Ukraine’s leading new-music composers to NY for concerts in 2011. We’ve played over 85 shows, premiered 140 new works by 30 composers, and over 110 performers have played or recorded with us. Not bad for a bunch of scrubs.

You can listen to and buy it all digitally at antisocialmusic.bandcamp.com or physically at the webstore. Learn more about Anti-Social Music at antisocialmusic.org and facebook.com/antisocialmusic.

“If Yo-Yo Ma and Ian MacKaye scored an Alfred Hitchcock film, Anti-Social Music might sleep through it[…]Imagine an orchestra wearing formal attire and combat boots, then replace the conductor’s baton with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.”

-Magnet, #1 of 10 Records You Missed in 2005